Eastern European countries equate Nazi and communist crimes Distorting the Shoah R By EFRAIM ZUROFF


ecent events in four dif- ferent Eastern European countries have once again highlighted the ongoing assault on the accepted Holocaust narra-


CALL TO ACTION


tive in the post-communist world. Three attracted consider- able attention, while the fourth, which perhaps affords us the best insight into the phenomenon of Eastern European attempts to rewrite World War II history, was virtually ignored, until it aroused a solitary Jewish protest. In Kiev, Odessa and Lviv, on Jan. 1, hundreds marched to mark the birthday of Ukrainian nationalist hero Stepan Bandera, who headed the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which collaborated with the Nazis and actively participated in the mass murder of Jews follow- ing the German occupation of Ukraine in 1941. A few days


later, the regional council of the Ukrainian oblast of Ivano- Frankivsk declared 2012 the year of the UPA, the military wing of the OUN.


From Estonia, on Dec. 27, it


the Jews of Estonia had already been murdered), its members included men who had previous- ly been involved in killing Jews and Gypsies.


In Zagreb and Split, Croatia,


Afghanistan, who wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed in which he characterized the Nazi occupa- tion of his homeland during the years 1941-45 as “a few years’ respite from the communists.”


Lithuanian Foreign Minister Vygaudas Usackas characterized the Nazi occupation of his homeland during the years 1941-45 as “a few years’ respite from the communists.”


was reported that the country’s defense ministry planned to sub- mit a bill to parliament that would recognize Estonians who served in the 20th Waffen-SS Grenadier Division, which fought alongside German troops as “freedom fighters” for the country’s independence — despite the fact that Nazi Germany had no intention of granting Estonia freedom. While the Waffen-SS division did not participate in Holocaust crimes (by the time it was established


memorial masses were conduct- ed on Dec. 28 to honor Ante Pavelic, its World War II head of state, who bears responsibility for the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of Serbs, 30,000 Jews and several thousand Roma. Pavelic, who was installed by the Germans, created one of the most lethal and brutal regimes in Axis-dominated Europe. The fourth event involved for- mer Lithuanian Foreign Minister Vygaudas Usackas, currently the EU special representative to


In view of the fact that 96.4 percent of the 220,000 Lithuanian Jews who lived there under the German occupation were murdered (along with thou- sands more Jews deported there from Western and Central Europe), many by local Nazi col- laborators, Usackas’ description was grossly insensitive, if not outright outrageous. Yet in response to my criticism, Usackas issued a public state- ment in which he justified his original text by pointing to the


unbalanced treatment in Western public opinion of “the crimes of Stalin’s regime ... and the tragedy of its victims,” which had only recently received due legal recognition, “in contrast to Nazi crimes which have been universally condemned by all civilized humanity.” And while he did reiterate an earlier con- demnation of Holocaust crimes in general, his comments did not mention a word about the tragic plight of Lithuanian Jewry or the horrific crimes committed by Lithuanians during the “respite” from Soviet occupation. Such callous indifference to


the fate of more than 200,000 Lithuanian citizens, murdered in many cases by their own coun- trymen, may seem shocking coming from an official repre- sentative of the European Union, but recent events in Lithuania clearly indicate the government’s determination to rewrite the his- tory books to cover up the crimes continued on page 30


JEWISH TRIBUNE • JANUARY 20-26, 2012


5


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16